The Influence of Digital Age in Our Lives

Every individual has a responsibility towards the society by advocating for the best practices which promote peaceful coexistence and respect for diversity in the society. It is each one’s duty to protect the fundamental beliefs and practices which focus in creating opportunities for other in the society and also protecting the less privileged who live among us such as the orphaned, the sick, the old etc. this mandates extends to each member of the society despite the social class or profession.

For those working in the media and other modes of mass communication, there is the need to create content –print media, TV shows films, social media posts etc– that which promotes social and educational materials, raise moral awareness regarding moral issues facing the society, protect children from exposure to adult-related content and more importantly that which encourages and promotes the investment of new talents by encouraging active participation of the society in various projects from time to time. That is the basis of Digital Social Responsibility.

Basically, when I look at where the media is today as opposed to where it was a decade ago, I can’t fail to marvelous at the tremendous journey and revolution that the media had undergone. There has been a lot of changes in the mode at which information is processed, disseminated and consumed by various demographic groups across the whole world. Today, a lot of information is been shared and distributed readily each second, each minute through various platforms.

Years back, when I had about ‘Kindle’ I thought that it was a big joke which wouldn’t materialize. However today, kindle is one platform which is disseminating info more than conventional publishing of hard copies. Times have changed a lot.

Explosion of Digital Content Should be controlled from Destroying Our Societies

But nothing comes without a price. As more digital projects are being launched each daily while those working on those projects are keen enough positioning themselves to capitalize on these projects, the moral fabric is on a steep curve of declining. The massive exposure of the content has in several cases been linked to the rots in the society especially by the youth and young kids who are naive enough to consume every ideology or scene which is propagated to them by various individuals who have aligned themselves to tap the global market brought about by the distribution of information through various digitization scopes.

Some years back I went undercover to investigate a story whereby some youth had organized an orgy party in which the few invited were promised to have one of the ‘loveliest’ weekends of their lifetime. There is nothing with people going out to have fun. However my investigation revealed that those who had organized the party in an up market area of the city were adults who wanted to take advantage of the youth. They had planned to use them for sex and do drugs in the unknown location which was to be revealed on the said day. Were it for my intervention and the help of the law enforcement authorities who went on to track and crack down on the planners the event would have taken place.

There are some of those who may have attended the party who would have to live with years of regret about the whole event, many of them never had any clue what was to transpire their, yet they purchased tickets for the events.

Advocating for Publishing and Distribution of Appropriate Content

As much as some of the youths today may be living a reckless life doesn’t mean that we need to abandon them and let life teach them a lesson. Many of them are influence by misleading content which is being shared across several digital platforms. Take for instance pornography.Digital platforms have made the sex industry to augur so where that pornographic content finds its way to underage kids who feel the need to explore. In the end we have youths whose life is filled with illusions as they experiment whatever they are fed.

There are many instances today where even sex talks on radio stations are hosted in the morning and other times of the day when even the children are having breakfast with their parents as opposed to years back when such programmes would take place late at night after kids have gone to bed and only adults contributed on the topics of discussion.

So what is the way forward? It is time that we all became responsible. Every person sharing files and content online or in any digital platform needs to take responsibility and be mature enough to distribute something which is of educational or moral value to the society. We need to protect our children from bad influences.

There is need for the various institutions tasked with the responsibility of censoring content to ensure that every material published meets the set standards. Moreover, all those who work in various digital media needs to start promoting good values to one’s followers and audience. For instance, one could create a video game which promotes education or social interaction. Organizing various projects to tap talents and encouraging the participation of young people in such programs can also help them realize their talents and purpose in life other than destroy their lives.